Hi Everyone, it’s great to see the nice weather hanging around with warm Gold Coast Winter days on offer last weekend. The temp cooled down a bit during the week but the fishing has been hot with some great catches coming in. Let’s have a look at some options for the weekend.

Coomera Bait and Tackle customer and regular contributor Will Henderson and his Dad Steve (see photos in report) have been having a ball on the Tweed River lately scoring some great catches of Flathead and even a fantastic winter Mangrove Jack using his favourite Zerek Fish Trap vibe lure. Will has been working the deeper areas of the river in search of bait schools, once he finds the bait he works the area until he finds the fish. Some good eating sized Flathead 45-55cm size range have been caught in reasonable numbers which is great if you’re looking for a nice feed of fresh Flathead.

Brad Smith Fishing Charters have reported some good catches of Flathead and a few Jewfish tea bagging metal vibe lures on the Tweed River the past week. Brad and Clint’s customers have been lucky to be catching plenty of quality fish so far this winter.

Coomera Houseboat Holidays customers have also been doing well in the Broadwater and around Jumpinpin this week scoring some nice Flathead on a mixture of bait and lures. Some good spots to try are Wave Break Island, Paradise Point, Brown Island, Aldershots, Coomera River and Tipplers Passage. Around Jumpinpin try Cabbage Tree Point, Jacobs Well, Tiger Mullet Channel, Pandanus Island, Tipplers Island and Kalinga Bank. Zman soft plastics in the 3 – 4” sized range have been producing some nice fish. Trolling hard body lures like Zerek Tango Shads, Rapala and Storm in the shallower areas have been working well. Drift fishing bait is a great method to temp Flathead, WA pilchards, White Pilchards, Mullet Fillet Strips, Prawns or Yabbies are great bait. Flathead are ambush predators so keeping the bait on the move will help to find better numbers of fish.

Offshore conditions have been pretty good will a small swell making it fairly easy to access the local reefs off the Gold Coast and Tweed Heads. Snapper numbers have been getting better each week with good catches coming in from the 50, 36, 24 and 18 fathom reefs, as we head into August a prime time to catch bigger fish that’s great news. Burley plays a big part in attracting quality fish to bite especially on the shallower reefs, I recommend to keep a steading trail of pellets or WA pilly cubes going. Customers have also been catching some nice Spangled Emperor, Pearl Perch, Tusk, Moses, Trag, Cobia and JewFish.

Bream are a great target for both land based anglers or boaties and have been around in pretty good numbers. Some good spots to try land based are the Nerang River, Southport Bridge, Gold Coast Seaway Rock Walls, Marine Parade Labrador, Grand Hotel Jetty, Lands End Biggera Waters, Paradise Point Jetty and Jacobs Well. In the boat try Whallys Gutter, Tiger Mullet Channel, Short Island, Crusoe Island, Kalinga Bank, Dux, Wave Break Island and the Gold Coast Seaway. Good baits to try are Mullet Gut, Mullet Fillet, White Pilchards, Prawns or Yabbies.

At the time of writing my report the forecast looks like a pretty good weekend on the way with light SE winds on Friday. Saturday will see light NE winds before tending N/NW on Sunday and increasing to moderate. Saturday looks like the best day go fishing. Just make sure you have the latest weather report before you head out on the water.